Sunday, November 25, 2018

"The British people want us to get this done!" says Theresa May, implying that they want parliament to endorse her Brexit deal. The only snag: opinion polling suggests they want no such thing. Here are the latest GB-wide numbers from YouGov...

Support the deal: 23%Oppose the deal: 45%

In fairness that represents an 8% increase in support for the deal, which mean things have gone from catastrophic to merely disastrous for May. But if the Scottish subsample of the poll is to believed (and yes, there are the usual caveats about the reliability of any individual subsample) things are even worse for her here. Only 14% of Scottish respondents support the deal, and 51% oppose it - more than a 3 to 1 margin against.

The likes of Kenny Farquharson, and May loyalists in the Tory government, have tried to get a narrative going that says the SNP should act responsibly and in the national interest by letting the deal through. But for as long as only 14% of the public actually support that notion of "responsibility", there will be absolutely zero pressure on Nicola Sturgeon to reverse her plans to vote the deal down - and with a bit of luck to bring the wretched May premiership to a long-overdue end. Now is the time, Prime Minister, now is the time.

The FM should promise that the SNP MPs will abstain in the voting on the wretched Brexit deal - but only on grounds of EVEL, i.e., if the Westminster regime exempts Scotland from it, whether by treating us like Northern Ireland, or by simply kicking out of their precious, precious Union...

The trouble with voting against the Deal is that the groups voting against are doing so for opposite reasons. The hard Brexiteers want No Deal and the Remainers want Remain. Both sides risk bringing on their own worst nightmare by voting down the Deal.

Brexit was always going to be crap whoever negotiated it. People who don't like it because it does not contain enough unicorns and rainbows are about to get an education.

If you vote against the deal there's just no brexit. Our 27 neigbours don't want is to go. If there's a crash out no deal it's because England jumped off the cliff voluntarily. Any deadlines for an exit are English deadlines.

Joe / jock public understand this perfectly. It's why the economy has slowed rather than tanked. It's also why if we have no deal, it will be the UK/English government that's completely blamed and the union comes to an end.

The best hope for the UK is that the deal fails to pass and we stay in. However, it's only marginally better for unionists as it could of course mean England opts for no deal by cliff jumping and the UK ends.

However, if the deal passes and we leave, the UK will most likely end as polling shows. Even with the deal as it stands, the economy will tank and infighting will go on for years. Scotland will walk at some point most probably.

Remember, the current deal is just the exit agreement. UK can still crash out of the single market if it fails to agree an actual trade deal after that. Spain could veto in the future for instance, or Ireland if the backstop isn't honored. Then we are looking at years of trying to negotiate trade deals elsewhere from a vulnerable position. That will mean giving away control of all sorts of laws to other states like China, India etc including opening up to freer movement with them. It will be that or no trade. That's not going to go down well among brexiters.

So, either way the UK's heading for messy infighting + long term breakup of some form if brexit proceeds. It's just really how that will play out precisely.

Unless brexit goes away. Then it's got a few years, but for N. Ireland and Scotland, the generational demographics are steadily eating away at cultural unionism/britishness behind all this. So, UK's screwed that way anyway.

Might be easier just to let all the nations go their own ways right now. Would be a lot better in the long term for everyone.

The deal with N. Ireland is about that; England knows its off in due course anyway, so why try to keep it? Unionism just lost it's majority there; truly historic. Scotland's worth a lot of cash though, so its a bit different. #ClairRidge.

If Parliament fails to agree a deal, and it goes on, we simply crash out on 29March, 2019. That date is set in law by the Withdrawal Act. We don't remain in EU, unless that date is changed, and the EU agrees to revocation of A50.The danger right now are the Brexit extremists talking down the clock, or Opposition parties not coming up with a winnable alternative.EU have been clear today, there is no other deal on the table. They are sick of the farce. Stakes are high now.

Thing about a rainbow is it has two ends and even if you achieve the impossible and reach one it's not necessarily the one with the pot of gold. Just as much chance as a pile of manure. At least the leap of faith will end in a soft landing

You've won me over. If the 'EU-SSR' supports the deal, it must be voted down!

This is truly glorious. SNP are voting with the Reece Mogg brigade and the Reece Mogg brigade are fuming about it. Meanwhile, the provisional IRA are backing May's deal while the UDF are talking about how the British have utterly betrayed them.

Pretty sure SF are supporting because they know-hope the young voters in the North will see the screwed up border and vote to reunite. Which is the only reason for the party. When millenials have to wait at border to drive to their boy or girlfriends or to store, festival, concert , relatives etc they will wreak their vengeance.

Have to say that no pro EU person has ever been able to say what benefits have been accrued by any of the working classes in the participating countries. OK they distributed the butter and cheese mountains to us plebs during the eighties but other than that the EU cognicenty have lined their pockets and prospered.

I find it particularly creepy that brexiters want to control who brits can fall in love with/live with (by limiting free movement, requiring and potentially refusing visas etc). That's true blood and soil nationalism; Adolf would be proud.

My mother in law is getting old now. The wife and I may have to start looking after her soon. Brexiters don't want her to be able to come here though; not unless they decide they can maybe 'tolerate' her. Some sweaty racist Tory is hoping to stamp 'refused' on her entry. They see her as a 'queue jumper' who's 'not like us' and 'taking our jobs whilst living on benefits'. So I may need my ROI passport to allow us to go and look after her France if needs be.

Free movement is a wonderful thing; the greatest benefit of the EU and why I voted Remain.

Sinn Fein should keep out of it they don't take their Westminster seats so should be excluded if they did then they could in part balance up the DUP MP'S which would leave May with a majority of only 3.

Sinn Fein Catholic fascist IRA are the modern version of The Mussolini/Hitler regimes without funny hats and mustaches. There are not enough Jews around in Ireland to fill up a truck for the holiday camps.

The biggest story of the year is Mike Small throwing another strop and getting his tutu all in a fankle. Cheered on by some of the most revolting online Yoons as usual. The man has no shame. The most obvious 5th columnist acting against independence in history.

GWC AKA The Hon. Cordelia Bracely-Dubois of the 77th (Manky Shirt, Self Funded) Auxiliaries and its willingness to tell us entirely too much about its inner fantasy life.Poor, tormented, xenophobic Cordelia.So much impotent rage.So very funny.

If May had looked for consensus...worked with all the nations and political parties of the UK, she likely wouldn't be facing defeat for her deal.

Instead, she/the Tories have pursued their own narrow party political agenda, ignoring / overriding the wishes of the vast majority of the peoples of the UK, creating great anger and division. On top of that, her racist, bigoted attacks on anyone not blood and soil brexiter English have added fuel to the fire.

The public are quite aware of this, hence the overwhelming support in polls for voting down the deal and even bringing down the government. She's dug her own grave here.

I get all that, but in defeating May we are likely to bring on a No Deal Brexit. Here in the NW Highlands we have a lot of fishermen selling to Europe and their chances of getting fresh seafood to market in time look pretty poor in a crash out Brexit. All the car manufacturers are stuffed too. Do we want this in order to make people vote Yes? I want Yes too but it seems a pretty destructive way of getting it.

If Scots suffer a no-deal brexit, it's because they voted for that / wanted it.

The Scottish government have been very clear that if Scotland doesn't get to stay at least in the single market, then a new iref will be held to allow the electorate to decide. N. Ireland will be getting single market it seems, as will Gibraltar, but not Scotland (one can only assume this for anti-Scottish xenophobic reasons).

So, if Scotland gets actual no deal / crashes out of the EU, it gets that because it asked for it / decided not to jump in the lifeboat offered.

If the UK government refuses to aknowledge the sovereign will of the Scottish people and agree to respect a new iref, then democracy in the UK is over and Scotland must move to independence if simply to protect that alone.

Sure time is short, but if a no deal is on the cards yet Scotland is very demonsrably moving to independence, even a new iref held during or after the messy exit would reduce the economic damage of a no deal.

So if Scotland gets no deal, it's because it wanted that, or the UK has ceased to be a democracy / has become a totalitarian state.

There is still time for May to agree for the UK to remain in the single market / customs union, stopping the countdown clock. The 27 have said that's open to the UK.

I think the whole thing is crazy. Why are we letting a second rate politician continue to press on with her farcical EU deal? What happened to scrutiny? Where are the press? What happened to HM opposition? Putting aside how this affects Scotland this deal is very, very poor indeed.

Yes and there is not a lot in it. At nearly 600 pages it sounds weighty but have a look and you will see how empty it is. When you then cut to the detail you can see how poor the deal is - its like a fishing net: a lot of holes tied together with string.

I do not want to labour this, but it does seem to the press and politicians that mentioning the number of pages in a document is enough to imbue this document some level of gravity and cudos, but that is not good enough. The document is written in double space. Some pages have two paragraphs on them with less that 100 words. Bearly over half-way through we are onto annexes (appendices) - there is nothing in this but ideas and outlines. We ALL should be asking about scrutiny - what has happened to the checks and counterbalance to our government? the opposition is poor and the press are absent. The soundbite and its counter are all that seems to matter now. The person who asked "have you read it (this document)" is probably politically miles away from me, but he/she should be requiring the same scrutiny of any such document by our politicians and press. Yes, we can all have a barney over independence or the economy or whatever, and the glesca2 person may have a different political view from myself with ideas and beliefs that, I dare say, are are just as cogent, relevant and deeply felt as mine, but although we differ we both require from our politicians and press the open public investigation and scrutiny of documents as important as this for all of our benefit.